Strange problems with Windows 2003 x64 R2 & IIS Manager

July 1, 2010 at 7:42 pm · Filed under Server, Windows

This post details problems I’ve had with a Windows 2003 Enterprise x64 R2 install, and more specifically the Internet Information Services Manager, and the certicate wizard within.

I’ve had a couple of strange problems with a Windows 2003 install I’ve been carrying out over the past couple of days.

The first is the fact that despite every component Internet Information Services showing as being fully installed in the ‘Windows Add/Remove’ Components dialog, the IIS manager couldn’t be found within Administrator Tools.

The fact that I got the IIS default install webpage when visiting http://localhost confirmed that it was indeed installed. However, if I tried to run iismgr via the command line, the MMC would open with the red cross informing me that “MMC could not create the snap-in”. After a little digging I found a solution to the problem, which is caused by the IIS manager DLL not being registered (for reasons unbeknownst to me). To fix it, run the following in a command prompt (or from Run):

regsvr2 %windir%\system32\inetsrv\inetmgr.dll

You should get the confirmation message box telling you that the DLL has been successfully registered. Close and reopen any IIS MMC and all should now be right.

The next strange problem was found when trying to install an SSL certificate within the IIS manager. Right clicking on the ‘Default Website’ branch and selecting properties, and then clicking on ‘Server Certificate’ within the ‘Directory Security’ tab wouldn’t open the certficate wizard. Clicking on ‘Edit’ had the same result, the certificate wizard just wouldn’t open. Again, this problem is caused by a component not being registered, run the following command to register the Certificate Manager OCX:

regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\certmap.ocx

Again, you should receive confirmation that the component has registered successfully. Now, if you go back into IIS Manager you’ll see that you can now click on the ‘Edit’ button, but clicking on ‘Server Certificate’ still does nothing. That means that there’s still one more component to register, certwiz.ocx – do so by running the following:

regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\certwiz.ocx

Et voila! You should now be able to run the certificate wizard.

I haven’t a clue why these two problems have occurred with this particular installation, I’ve done nearly a dozen near-identical installs and never ran into this problem before. I’m just glad it didn’t result in a complete reinstall

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Quick Wireless Survey in Windows

October 22, 2009 at 12:11 am · Filed under Windows, Wireless

I recently needed the MAC address for another AP in my house, and after downloading and installing NetStumbler, was dismayed to find that for some reason the Atheros 11n chipset in my MBP isn’t supported.

A quick scout around and I found this command, which makes use of the excellent netsh command within Windows (XP onwards only I think, and the syntax/parameters seem to change every release – this was tested in Windows 7 and is known working in Vista…):

netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid

Et voila! You should have a nicely detailed list of all the APs in your vicinity. Nice to not have to use a third party app for something simple within Windows!

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SharePoint Search Issue

August 25, 2009 at 8:34 pm · Filed under SharePoint

Following a standard SharePoint install (WSS 3.0) you may receive the following error when carrying out a search:

The Web application at http://[URL to SharePoint]/ could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application.

This is due to internal DNS mappings not being mirrored within SharePoint. That is, your DNS server may resolve http://sharepoint.local to 10.1.1.1, but SharePoint (or at least the search service) is only listening to requests on http://servername.local.

To add the CNAME within SharePoint, follow the instructions below:

This presumes you are configuring the search for internal searches – you can easily alter the instructions below for external mappings.

1. Login to the SharePoint server via RDP
2. Administrative Tools > SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration
3. Click ‘Operations’ in the left-hand menu pane
4. Click ‘Alternate access mappings’ under the ‘Global Configuration’ header
5. Click ‘Add Internal URLs’
6. Select ‘SharePoint – 80′ from within the ‘Alternate access mapping collection’ drop-down menu.
7. Type the full URL you require in the space provided. For example http://sharepoint.company.com
8. Select your required zone – for our example we select ‘Intranet’. Click Save which should then take you back to the mappings list.

SharePoint search should now work!

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